From Lisbon with Love

I jump right in during my residency at the faculdade de belas-artes da Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal. There are a ton of plaster casts on the campus which is housed in a converted franciscan monastery. I begin with a graphite drawing on Fabriano paper of a torso I found in the basement, beside the wood shop.

My father was born in Lisbon Portugal, and part of my desire to come to Lisbon is to discover a bit of my families heritage. I don't know much about it or the culture. Growing up I was only exposed every few week-ends with visits to my grandparents. Portuguese was never spoken at home or taught to us. It has made it difficult to communicate since I don't speak or write any Portuguese. But it is nice to blend in a bit and to take in the sights and sounds which may be held deep in my soul waiting to be awakened.

Drawing 1 - Final class

Yet another sad day when my Drawing 1 class comes to a close. This was my best class to date and I'm sad to see my little blossoming artists go, but hopefully they keep up their practice by drawing often.

For the final class I like to revisit the assignment after the first class, a self portrait. I quickly do a demo that encapsulates everything we covered in the past 9 sessions and bring it all together as an effective system to do a final self portrait, in class, so in about 2 hrs and a bit.

They are observing in mirrors for the most part so they start with a strong vertical axis and find comparative measurements to construct the general layout and shape. I am a bit of a stickler for proper proportions at first in order to help learn proper observation and translation onto the page.

Drawing is freeing. You can work in many medias and use many techniques. You can tone the paper and use the eraser to draw lines in light as you would with charcoal for darks. Allowing you to really sculpt the portrait like clay, only as a flat 2D image on paper.

Once the general look is right, some begin putting in their values. Afterward we have a quick critique comparing their first drawings in the class to their last drawings and comment on their observations and improvements during the course. Here are some of the works in no particular order.

You can see that in 10 short classes one can really take it to the limit with drawing!  If you are interested in classes I have more coming up in the winter, including a "life drawing" course at ACAD int he evening, so you'll get instruction and time to make marks based on live models! 

Draw 'til you Drop V

Mark Vazquez-McKay put together another great drawing from life event for artists. I had to teach my final Drawing 1 class at ACAD on Saturday so, unfortunately, I couldn't do both days of the drawing event. However, It was still so worth spending the entire Sunday with the great group of people improving their skills and honing their craft. I am especially proud 3 of my past students joined in for the event. Their spirits are strong and I hope more can make it out and stand shoulder to shoulder with their peers in the future.

I am posting these Iphotos from the sketches I completed in my sketchbook and on one sheet of the new Mellotex paper I picked up from Swinton's (Thanks Doug and staff for introducing to me an exciting new product to experiment with). I did more drawings but didn't photo them yet but I will add them as soon as I do.

Quick poses as is the custom with an early start in the day to get the arm loosened up of the longer sessions. The one above top right was done in ink to get my hand ready because you can't erase the mistakes. Below that is one done in 6B. Thanks to Daisy Deville and her fantastic Burlesque models for working with us artists. It is great to mix subcultures to great benefit to both groups!

One of the rooms had a burlesque model who posed with attitude in a satyr costume. The other room had a great drawing opportunity but they were happening simultaneously and I unfortunately couldn't be in two places at once. Drat!  I went for horns and hooves since it is a lot more like my work. I am happy with how it turned out. However, by this put in the day I was tired, so I sat with my paper flat rather than standing so the work became contorted and out of proportion a bit which I find happens when you are making large work at an angle. I also experimented with some new blending materials on the new paper and had to rescue the face, though it does resemble the model. She said she really liked the piece to me after the session = :D

This is the final burlesque models pose for the final session of the event. Everybody was still going hard. The fatigue helps make more natural drawings I think and frees up the artist, thought it is a long road to take to get there lol.  If you'd like to join in the fun keep following this blog and I'll keep you posted about upcoming events like this.

Ciao for now  =:B

Sketch of a figure sitting

One of the things that I struggle with most  in my art making practice is value and tone. My eyes are opening to seeing the variations and nuances of light and shadow. My work tends to be flat and graphical but I have always wanted to have the traditional skill set of the old masters, to do this takes dedication, patience and some gentle massaging with the pencil.

 This sketch was done entirely with a 0.07 HB mechanical pencil. I really tried to push it to get as much of a range of light and dark from the single lead type. It would definitely have been easier to use some other tools, but the task I set myself up to do was a great challenge and learning opportunity.

I threw down some copic cool grey (C3) which happened to be the value behind the model in reality. It took me quite a while to decide on that marker and then I quickly filled in the background just in time for the critique. I think this is one of my most successful drawing from like sketches ever. Onward and upward.

That's Mike in the yellow shirt behind my sketch.
He liked the drawing so much I gave it to him.  = :D

Drawing Portraits Workshop

1 day drawing workshop with Martinho Correia at the Calgary School or Art.

This workshop will introduce students to the principles of portrait drawing in the realist tradition. Concepts to be covered include: measuring and proportion, planes and forms as well as values and shape design. The goal of the class is to give students an understanding of the traditional approach to creating an accurate and beautiful portrait.

The workshop began with an introduction to the Bargue drawing book and method. We were given a hand out to use as reference. Though there wasn't enough time to correctly make the drawing we got a start in on the method. Ususally a drawing like this can take about two weeks to finish.

Here is the start. I used a bamboo stick to get the relative size of elements starting from the plumb line down the center then finding the outer edges by using fractional measurements and their relationship to one another.

After the break we learned about the many elements that make up the head and face. We drew a head at a slight turn and began building this "realistic" face by relationships, not by referencing any actual person to give us a practical idea how the elements fit together in relation to one another. How the brow line in the top of the ear etc.

We blocked in more features as if they were basic solids onto the planes previously created. The mouth are as a shape that is similar to a half slice of an orange.

We added a bit of shading to accentuate the masses in the shapes on the planes of the face.

We used the muzzle shape and a starting point to create the protrusion of the lips on the face. This exercise helped teach how the shadows fall on the curving surface of the lips and how they sit.

We described more areas on the face with some directional shade lines.

More lines and shadows were added on our make believe practice head while we studied the finer points of its construction relative to some of the handouts we were given as reference. I like the eyeball in the upper right and how it describes how light and shadow fall on the iris.

I loved this reference image of how the muscles sit on the skull to create some of the movements of the face. Also note the workshop set up. Nice.

Martinho showed us some great exercises for drawing shapes off of old masters works in tracing paper. Then the aim is to try and replicate it exact by freehand. Every now and again putting the tracing paper over your drawing to see if you are accurate.

We used a transfer method to draw in a portrait to describe and break down the basic shapes of the face as well as challenged to draw in the models eye that as completely in shadow inthe reference photo.

Here I have built up the basic shadow. My eye placement seems off now that I look at it again days later. Damn.  At any rate, i begin describing the planes by directional shading.

I blocked in the major planes of areas of light and dark. and described with line the simplified major planes of the face. We reached the end of the class and it was very inspiring if not a huge challenge in a short period of time but it gives me the gears to see differently and set forth on my continued path to improving my artistic practice. It feels like there is still such a long, long way to go.